Archives for 'General Tips'

Sometimes, new guitarists can get confused by the volume and gain knobs on their amp because when you turn them, they seem to be almost doing the same thing - just making the amp louder. However, if you pay more attention, you will notice a great deal of difference between the two controls. It doesn't matter if you are playing through a brand new Fender Mustang amp or an old vintage boutique amp.

If you want to become the next Robert Plant or Eric Clapton, there is one thing to remember about playing the guitar. There are very few times when the phrase, “practice makes perfect” applies so completely. The most effective guitar practice is simply strumming the chords until you have them down by heart. The chords are the backbone of the guitar player’s profession and when you practice guitar, you must keep this in mind.

I am sure that anyone who started a band and feels unsatisfied with result of rehearsals will find something useful in this article, since I wrote it from experience of having 2, and even 3 bands at the same time, and many rehearsals. For some time there were always some ups and downs with rehearsing, but with the time I managed to ensure that the rehearsals I had were always as productive as they possibly could be.

One of the best weapons a guitarist has in the the battle to improve their playing speed is the Metronome. This small machine keeps perfect time with a series of beeps that can be configured for several purposes.

In this article I will explain the 2 most crucial settings to use on the metronome and their relationship to developing lethal shredding speed!

I've been playing the guitar for a long time. I started when I was twelve - I'm 34 now - learning "Smoke on the Water"by Deep Purple. After a week of constantly practicing the chorus using bar chords untill my timing was perfect I realized that this was it! This was what I wanted to do with my life!

Many guitar players get in a rut after they have been playing for some time. It usually happens at around 1-2 years. It happened to me. I’m sure it happened to you. For one reason or another we just get discouraged. Mostly because we feel we stopped making real progress. So what should we do to motivate ourselves to keep playing guitar?

First let’s try and find out why we lost our flare.

Throughout the first year or two of your playing you are learning so many new things on guitar. You’re like a newborn baby learning all about your new environment. Every day you find out fantastic new things. You learn what the string names are. You learn what a major chord is. You learn minor chords. You learn basic scales and their applications. But then you hit a wall. Where to go now?